DIPLOMACY: Spying in Peking

To hear the Chinese tell it, the caper
came right out of a spy novel. "It was the evening of Jan. 15 when the
streets in the Chinese capital were emptying," reported the official
New China News Agency. "A gray Soviet Volga car sped out of the Soviet
embassy in China. Winding through streets and lanes, it left the city
and raced toward the northeastern outskirts."

What followed, according to the Chinese, was an operation that would
have embarrassed the most junior spy.
Caught while parked under a bridge making "secret contact with
Soviet-Sent Agent Li Hung-shu and another unidentified...